Steps to the Altar

by Earlene Fowler

  I glanced at my watch. Though normally I enjoyed hearing oral history from someone who’d lived during that time, I had a lunch date with Gabe in fifteen minutes. “So, what are you trying to rope me into doing, Edna? You know I’ve got a pretty full plate these days so it can’t take too much time.”

  “Oh, it’s something you can do at your leisure. It’s about Maple Bennett Sullivan.”

  The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on how. “Maple Bennett Sullivan?”

  “I’m sure you must have heard about the tragedy with her and her husband, Garvey.”

  I shrugged. The history of this county was rife with nefarious shenanigans usually involving land ownership, cattle rustling, and water rights. Every old family had its share of misfortune and sad stories. “Can’t recall anything offhand.”

  “I don’t see how you can’t remember this one, my dear. It’s right up your alley.” Her watery blue eyes twinkled behind her round plastic eyeglasses.

  “Why’s that?”

  “She murdered her husband, my dear girl.”

  3

  BENNI

  “SHE WHAT?” I exclaimed.

  “She murdered her husband,” Edna repeated. “Surely you’ve heard the story.”

  I started to shake my head no, then a shadowy, childhood memory came back to me. “You know, I do think I remember hearing it mentioned sometime when I was a kid.” Dove and I had gone riding at her friend’s ranch, which bordered the Sullivan property. Dove’s friend, a red-faced woman named Lucie who raised Appaloosas, pointed out the house, in disrepair even then, and called it the murderess’s house. I was seven at the time and remember asking Dove when we were unsaddling the horses what a murderess was. She told me in her usual blunt way that it was a woman who killed someone because she was angry or wanted to get something the person owned. That seemed to have appeased me because I never thought about it again even though I’d passed by that house dozens of times in my life.

  “Why did she kill him?” I asked.

  She flipped her palm up in a who-knows gesture. “It was quite the scandal back in the forties. ’Forty-four, I think it was. The war was still going on and there weren’t many young men left here on the Central Coast. They were all off fighting somewhere. We lost too many of our boys during that time.” Her orange-painted mouth turned straight. “It was a bad time.”

  “How did she do it?” I couldn’t resist asking, though I suspected my showing of interest would probably add work to my already overloaded schedule.

  “Shot him in the head.” She put a finger gun up to her own blue-veined temple. “The rumor swirling around town was she was pregnant with another man’s child and wanted to run away with him. The story goes that she told Garvey about the baby, they had a horrible fight, she shot him, and then fled. They never found hide nor hair of her.”

  “What about the man she had the affair with?”

  “He disappeared too.” Her penciled eyebrows rose high on her pale forehead. “He was a local boy also. They both worked at the paper together. Did I mention she wrote a column for the San Celina Tribune? Human interest, women’s affairs, and such. I think she even did some articles on quilting. That would be right up your alley too. At any rate, no one heard from either of them again, so that tells it all, doesn’t it? Garvey’s father, Arthur, lived a few years after the war. Died in the early fifties, I think. Garvey’s mother died when he was a baby. Since Garvey had no heirs, his estate eventually went to some distant relatives back East, who apparently spent all the money and let the house and property be foreclosed for back taxes.”

  “That’s an interesting story,” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin. “But I’m not clear on how it concerns me.”

  “There are four trunks filled with her belongings and we need someone to catalog—”

  I held up my hands to interrupt her request. “I can’t, Edna. As fascinating as it sounds, I’m just too busy.”

  “There’s no time limit on when it needs to be done,” she said. Her voice took on a cajoling tone I knew would eventually wear me down. “Please, Benni. We need someone we can trust and someone who appreciates history, even the history of a murderess.”

  “Why in the world would you think that I’m the person most suited for this project?” I rolled the small white napkin into a ball and started squeezing it like one of those rubber stress toys so popular at Elvia’s bookstore.

  She patted my arm again with her cool, dry hand. “Because, my dear, you have a historian’s mind, a detective’s tenacity, and your grandma’s compassionate heart.”

  Oh, Lord, how could I answer that? Or even think of saying no to her request? “You would have made a great used car salesperson, Edna McClun,” I grumbled.

  She gave a tinkly laugh. “You are not the first person to tell me that. Shall I have the trunks delivered to your house or the museum?”

  “The museum. I don’t know if Dove told you, but Gabe and I finally bought a house and we’re half in one, half in the other. Escrow closes in two weeks, but the owners are letting us move in early since the house is empty. The trunks would be less likely to get misplaced at the museum.” Besides, I thought, there was no way I was doing this at home. I had enough of my own unpacking and sorting to do. I’d somehow squeeze it into my workday at the museum. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

  “Oh, you’ll enjoy it,” she said, reaching into her skirt pocket and handing me a key ring with four old-fashioned keys. “Like I said, it’s right up your alley, her being a murderess and all.”

  Before I could protest that this husband killer and I were not psychic cohorts, she told me that one of the restoration volunteers would deliver the trunks in the next few days and thanked me profusely for doing this wonderful, generous thing for the historical preservation of an interesting if tarnished part of San Celina history.

  “Remember,” she said. “No time limit on this. Just do it at your leisure.”

  Leisure? What was that? On the way to Antonio’s Italian Restaurant, where I’d agreed to meet Gabe for lunch to sign yet more papers pertaining to the three-bedroom California bungalow house we’d bought in downtown San Celina just four blocks over from Elvia’s store, I mentally berated myself for allowing someone to talk me into taking on another project. Though a part of me was curious about this woman and her, to say the least, troubled past, right now the thought of digging through four trunks of anyone’s belongings, including my own, just seemed tiring.

  At Antonio’s, Gabe had already ordered for us and was flipping through a stack of official-looking documents. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt, revealing one of my favorite parts of him, hard, corded forearms covered with coarse black hair.

  “You’re late,” he said, standing up to kiss me.

  “I was at a historical society meeting. You want to know what Edna McClun wants me to do?”

  “Hold that comment,” he said. “I need to have you sign these papers for the house before we get distracted.”

  After signing where he indicated, our lunches came—vegetarian lasagna for him, beef ravioli for me. I picked at my meal, not really hungry.

  “What’s wrong?” He pointed at my plate with his fork.

  “Ate too many cookies this morning.”

  He shook his head in reproach and began a story about a new rookie who had injured himself when he’d been on the job only three weeks and was now trying to sue the city. I half listened, thinking about what else I had to do this afternoon, until he rapped on my water glass with his knife.

  “Dispatch to Benni,” he said. “What’s got your attention? It’s certainly not me.” He smiled that devastatingly sexy smile of his—white, white teeth against tanned olive skin. A smile that could stop most women in midsentence and make them imagine physical pleasures that they’d never confess to even their closest girlfriends.

  I smiled back, not as seduced as I would have been two
and a half years ago when we first met, but warmed by it because I saw the self-mocking twinkle in his eye. “Friday,” I said, using my favorite nickname for him, based on his adherence to the original Joe Friday’s straight-and-narrow view of life. “I love you with all my heart and you are the sexiest male thing walking on two legs, but sometimes I’m just busy with my own thoughts, and hard as this is for you to believe, they don’t always include you.”

  His laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Te amo mucho, querida. You are good for my ego.”

  “And a great and mighty ego it is, Papacito,” I said, toasting him with my water.

  “See you around six,” he said. “Guess dinner is Big Top Pizza again.”

  “Since all our pots and pans are packed in a box that someone forgot to label, that’s a good and safe bet.”

  He grinned, not fazed by my criticism. “We’ll find them eventually. Just think, once we move into this house, we’ll never have to move again. The only boxes coming out of that house will be pine ones with us in them.”

  “And on that cheery thought, my dear Sergeant Friday, I’ll make my exit.”

  We kissed goodbye, both lightened by our midday break together, an unusual occurrence, given both our hectic schedules. I was excited that we’d finally found the perfect house. It felt like we were officially starting our life together even though we’d been married two years ago this coming Sunday. This was only the second thing we’d bought together, the first being my new Ford Ranger pickup truck, a two-month-old purchase I was still being razzed about by Daddy and all my ranching friends.

  For one thing, it was a Ford. A dirty word among most ranchers on the Central Coast, who were diehard, Mom and Apple Pie, Chevy-till-I-die fanatics.

  And it was purple.

  The official color was listed as sapphire blue, but it was blue with a clear top coat of red that, any way you looked at it, made purple. Since this was my truck, Gabe said the color choice was up to me. There were white, brown, red, turquoise, and purple ones on the lot.

  I don’t know what came over me, but the purple one just called my name. And I’d been the butt of every grape, eggplant, and Barney joke that every rancher I knew could think up.

  Gabe said he liked it because it was easier to keep an eye on me, something I certainly hadn’t considered when we bought the truck. Nevertheless, it ran like a dream, had air-conditioning, a working tape deck, and an extended cab with enough room for my backpack, my dog, and my horse tack. And it could haul hay bales with the best of any full-size Chevy pickup. All a woman really needed.

  Right at that moment, walking down the sunny street toward my best friend’s bookstore to harass her about her pending nuptials, I felt content and happy. Feelings I was learning to savor when they came in this unpredictable life. After bugging her, I would go shopping for her shower gift, stop off at the mall to buy the game prizes, and head home, where Gabe and I would spend another evening moving stuff to our new house.

  Blind Harry’s Bookstore was right in the heart of downtown San Celina. The redbrick building felt like a second home to me since Elvia started managing and slowly buying it five years ago. As one of the last surviving independent bookstores in San Celina County, it had become one of the most popular spots in town for both locals and tourists. I paused in front of her large glass window and studied this month’s display. Though I nagged her to make it a wedding motif in honor of her and Emory, she’d remained firm and stuck with the always popular Mardi Gras theme. This year’s theme was Masked Madness. At least fifty masks filled the window—including antique ones with faded feathers and still bright rhinestones; dime store varieties with their rainbow-colored feathers and cheap glitter; and elaborate one-of-a-kind creations made with large face-framing plumes, hundreds of sequins, and price tags that moved them from merely masks to pieces of art. Her window designer, an ex–Cal Poly art student who, though she no longer worked for Elvia but for a local interior design firm, still loved doing Blind Harry’s windows.

  Inside the bookstore, the mood was subdued, not unusual for a Wednesday afternoon. Things usually started picking up in the early evening when the students, done with their classes and looking for fun, started hanging out in the coffeehouse downstairs. The only activity going on right now was an after-school story hour presented by one of Elvia’s student employees, a girl majoring in early childhood education. She was reading The Tortilla Quilt picture book, one of my own personal favorites, to a group of fidgety five-year-olds. Elvia had the colorful quilt made from the pattern in the book hanging above the small storytelling stage.

  “Where’s the boss lady?” I asked the clerk at the counter. She had burgundy hair in two thick farm girl braids and a diamond stud in her nose.

  “Downstairs with Mr. GQ,” she said, smiling big. She made elaborate kissing noises. Since Elvia’s engagement last September, her employees, a mixture of senior citizens and college students, had taken great pleasure in teasing her about finally screwing up her courage to jump over the marriage broom. She allowed them a little fun, then when the enormity of this life change became overwhelming, went into her upstairs office and slammed the door. That was when everyone knew to leave her alone. If she was downstairs, she was obviously in an amiable mood.

  “Thanks,” I said, heading for the wooden stairs. She was in the back of the used-book-lined coffeehouse (her system of borrow a book and replace it with another had been a hit from its inception) sitting at a round oak table sharing a cranberry scone with my dearly beloved fifth cousin Emory.

  “Hey, kids,” I said. “Are you ready to stomp on the wineglass?”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Elvia said, standing up. “You can entertain the poultry baron while I get back to work and earn a real living.”

  Emory worked at the local newspaper though he was, in fact, filthy rich from his father’s smoked chicken business in Arkansas. He gave me yet another wide, goofy grin. His bright green eyes glowed as if he were on some kind of very potent, possibly illegal drug.

  “Oh, geeze,” I said, sitting down next to him. “If I have to gaze upon his canary-eating grin one more minute, I’m going to puke.”

  “You and me both,” Elvia said, rolling her black eyes.

  “Ladies,” Emory said, his smile not losing one kilowatt. “Why can’t you just let a man be happy? Y’all complain if we’re sad and complain if we’re happy. What is it y’all want?”

  Elvia and I both laughed.

  “That, my dear boy,” I said, reaching over and patting his hand, “is a secret women are sworn to keep from the minute they learn it at their mama’s knee.” I looked over at Elvia. “Right, mi amiga?”

  Elvia just laughed again, kissed Emory quickly, and headed back upstairs. “Your tux is ready,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ll need to go pick it up tonight.”

  He watched her walk up the stairs, lovesick amazement on his face.

  When he could no longer see her, he turned back to me. “Well, sweetcakes, how are things going on the move?”

  “Slow but sure. We’re moving some of our clothes over tonight. It’s nice having a few extra weeks to do it in.”

  “I’ll bet. I want to find a house as soon as we get back from our honeymoon. Both our condos are full to bursting. I’ve had a real estate agent out scouting. There’s a real nice Victorian down on the corner of Second and Heron Streets I think Elvia might love.”

  “That gray-and-white one? With the pink petunias in front?”

  “Yes, ma’ am.”

  “It’s only two blocks from me and Gabe!”

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’ am.”

  I leaned over and hugged him. “Oh, cousin, that would be so perfect. You and me living so close. Did you ever think when we were eleven and twelve something like this would happen?”

  That summer, back in 1970, when he’d come from Arkansas to stay at our ranch because his mother had just died and his father had gone quietly crazy for three months, had started our deep, lif
elong friendship. Since I’d lost my mother when I was six, I understood what he was going through, and in long afternoons down by the creek or up in the airy lofts of our haybarn, we discussed life, death, and the odd world of grown-ups, confiding in each other all the scary things kids feel about those subjects, but never told the adults in their lives. He went home in September, but we’d kept up a correspondence that cemented our new friendship. He was my best friend and the only person in the world related to me on both sides of my family—his grandfather and my dad’s grandfather were first cousins by marriage and his father, Boone Littleton, married my mother’s third cousin, Ervalean.

  “I’m happy as a new tick on a fat dog,” he said, heaving a big sigh.

  “Gee, I couldn’t tell,” I said, grabbing his cup of latte and taking a sip. “How are the plans for the bachelor blowout going? I’d better warn you, we’ve got spies. There’d better not be any naked ladies.”

  “No chance on that,” he said, leaning back in the old wooden library chair. “I’m not about to do anything that would cause Elvia to back out. No, it’s going to be a classy event down at the Jamestown Tavern. I’ve rented the upper room and we’re going to have a bourbon tasting, play low-stakes poker, eat high-fat appetizers, smoke illegal Cuban cigars, and watch crazy police chase videos that your hubby is providing.”

  “When?”

  “Next Wednesday night. This Saturday’s out because of the Mardi Gras parade and costume ball at Constance Sinclair’s. And we don’t want to do it too close to the wedding because I want everyone hangover-free, including myself.”

  “That’s the night of Dove’s shower! Maybe we’ll run into each other. Well, just be careful driving home.”

  “Already taken care of, my dear worrisome girl. I’ve hired a passel of college students to drive the inebriated safely home.”